Default touch screen edge gestures

Tue Apr 11 11:13:11 UTC 2017

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 11:32:18 BST Martin Gräßlin wrote:
> Am 11. April 2017 11:23:01 MESZ schrieb Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen 
<admin at leinir.dk>:
> >Heyhey :)
> >
> >i do rather like the idea of edge gestures, however i would also quite
> >like
> >to keep in mind applications here...
> 
> we discussed the proposed implementation at the affenfels sprint. Why did
> you not raise this concern there?

  i did mention it, but i realise my voice does not carry well.

> I explicitly asked for the "go for it!" prior to spending time on
> implementing. Now coming up with additional requirements after the
> implementation is rather unfair.

  As you say, you have already worked on the implementation, and i must 
confess to have not quite realised that (having been somewhat busy in other 
areas). I retract my statement - while having the corners included, it is too 
late to consider this now. Perhaps it might also, arguably, be too many 
options for something which is supposed to be a type of sloppy interaction. At 
any rate, departed trains and sailed boats and whatnot.

  Arguing against myself, too, I guess it would make sense to perhaps have a 
different set of gestures for when touch is a secondary input (touch enabled 
laptops and whatnot), and for touch-first devices (phones, tablets...). It 
would not be entirely out of step with what i have advocated with the whole 
Gemini thing for a while now, that one size does not fit all ;)
  So, again, i retract my early morning comments, and quite entirely see your 
reason for being displeased with what i am sure will seem as a drive-by info 
drop (rather than the hopeful helpful comment it was intended to be, and which 
obviously, in hindsight, it does not exactly manage).

  Now, to try and be at least vaguely useful: Might i suggest that running 
applications full screen would be something of a special case, and that in 
such a case, the edge gestures might be expected to be different? Specifically, 
it might be expected that the top (or bottom) edge would somehow function as 
an escape function (say, present windows for example), while the remaining 
edges are given to the full screen application?
  I mention this because, after using systems where this does not happen, it 
is quite annoying when such accidental activations happen. Again, this is 
only, specifically, for full screen applications, not for the general case, 
where the rest of the system is visible.
  Hope that is an at least marginally useful comment on the topic.

> >Specifically, other touch-focused
> >UXes all
> >have some kind of concept of edges given over to the applications
> >rather than
> >the system. Windows has the bottom edge, Android has both sides, Jolla
> >has the
> >top edge, and iOS has... both sides as well if i'm not too far
> >mistaken.
> >What i imagine we might do is to make it eight locations rather than
> >four,
> >to allow us to emulate various options (which i suspect would be very
> >useful
> >for experimentation as well). That is, the four edges, and the four
> >corners.
> >The most important point i am trying to make here is, though, that if
> >you
> >have a maximised application on screen, it seems to me that if we are
> >aiming
> >for convergence, might it not make sense to have similar gestures as
> >the
> >default for all the form factors our software runs on?
> >
> >On Saturday, 8 April 2017 10:24:04 BST Martin Gräßlin wrote:
> >> Hi Plasmates,
> >> 
> >> now that we have touch screen edge swipe gesture support both on X11
> >
> >and
> >
> >> Wayland we could define which actions to put on each edge.
> >> 
> >> My suggestion would be to put a sensible action on each of the four
> >> actions.
> >> 
> >> Personal proposal:
> >> 
> >> *Left Edge:*
> >> Window Switching as the default alt+tab theme is on the left side.
> >
> >Also
> >
> >> on Windows 10 this happens on the left edge.
> >> 
> >> *Top Edge:*
> >> Present Windows as 4 finger swipe downwards on touchpad triggers
> >
> >present
> >
> >> windows.
> >> 
> >> *Bottom Edge:*
> >> Desktop Grid as 4 finger swipe upwards on touchpad triggers desktop
> >> grid.
> >> 
> >> *Right Edge:*
> >> Application launcher
> >> 
> >> 
> >> What I dislike about the proposal is: Present Windows and Alt+Tab are
> >> kind of redundant. Given that a better default edge would be nice for
> >> top edge. KRunner would be a nice fit as it's also on top, but it's
> >> rather useless on touch.
> >> 
> >> The application launcher is rather disconnected in the default setup
> >
> >if
> >
> >> we swipe in from left screen. What I personally would prefer if we
> >
> >could
> >
> >> trigger the application dashboard. Of course we still don't have
> >
> >working
> >
> >> touch support in the application launchers, so if we go for that we
> >
> >need
> >
> >> fixing (same applies for alt+tab btw.).
> >> 
> >> So please comment and propose your own ideas.
> >> 
> >> Cheers
> >> Martin

-- 
..dan / leinir..
http://leinir.dk/